


As the Circle Goes

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29772921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: “Leia,” Luke says, whines really, “this isn’t necessary. Honestly.”It was just the one assassin, and Luke thinks he handled things just fine. Seriously. He still has all his limbs and look! Still alive! Win-win all around.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 197





	As the Circle Goes

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Leia,” Luke says, whines really, “this isn’t necessary. Honestly.”

It was just the one assassin, and Luke thinks he handled things just fine. Seriously. He still has all his limbs and look! Still alive! Win-win all around. 

Leia crosses her arms and leans in. 

“Oh?” she says. “Really.”

Luke ratchets his smile up to Rebel Alliance poster boy levels because he knows how much Leia hates it – _too many bright white shiny teeth, like a nightmare_ \- and nods. “Really.”

“Hm,” Leia cocks her head. Gives him her best Rebel Alliance leader smile, the one that has made grown men weep, and not just Han. “Well, in that case, you definitely do.”

What? No. That’s the opposite of what Luke’s telling her, and also, _no_.

========

“He comes highly recommended by people I respect. Not you, in case you’re wondering.”

Things like that are incredibly hurtful and unhelpful and also mean.

“I know,” Leia says when Luke points that out to her, in case she didn’t realize, and the smile she gives Luke is sweetness and light. “Why do you think I say them?”

========

A Jedi, an assassin, and a bounty hunter walk into a bar and -

Alright, it’s more that the Jedi walks into the bar. The assassin was already there, and the bounty hunter is outside. _Leaning_.

========

“Oh, hey,” Luke wheezes, meaty hand of said assassin wrapped around his throat. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The assassin snarls, low, guttural, mouth full of sharp pointy teeth and the claws on her hand digging into Luke’s skin. “Same,” she says, and tosses Luke through a window.

========

“Okay, look,” Luke says, picking himself off the ground and dusting himself off. “I’ll admit that wasn’t my best showing.”

The aforementioned bounty hunter snorts. Says, in this unfairly attractive voice, “I should hope not.”

Luke scowls. Points at the bounty hunter who, like so many people in Luke’s life, is hurtful and unhelpful and mean. “ _Rude_.”

========

The assassin comes barreling through the bar’s doors at him, and Luke meets her with a smile and a cheery “Hello again!” and also his lightsaber.

She snarls, a sound that will stick with Luke for days afterwards. Gets at his animal hind-brain to remind him his kind may have figured out opposable thumbs, but they still go down so easily under claws and fangs and anyway, it’s going to stick with him.

Also, she has a vibro-ax.

========

The bounty hunter steps in – Luke hears him sigh before he does, which goes along with being hurtful and unhelpful and mean – after Luke gets thrown back through the bar’s window.

“Sorry!” he says, waving a hand at the bartender. “I’ll pay for the damages!”

He hears heavy footsteps coming towards him, another angry snarl. Looks towards the bar’s entrance to see the assassin stalking towards him, and behind her the bounty hunter's back-lit by the mid-afternoon sun.

Very dramatic.

The bounty hunter sighs and raises his arm. Whipcord snapping out to tangle the assassin’s legs, and he yanks, pulling her off her feet.

She’s faster than most would think for someone her size, agile. Twists around, claws out and preparing to lunge for the bounty hunter, but Luke’s there before she can.

Lightsaber at her throat and a pleasant smile and “I didn’t get your name,” he says, watching the way she watches him. “My name is Luke, by the way.”

========

Luke never does get the assassin’s name, but she lets him buy her a drink and then tells him who wants him dead this time.

“Huh,” Luke says. “That’s unexpected.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “Is it really?” she asks, incredibly judgmental for someone who doesn’t even know him.

========

“So that was your plan?” the bounty hunter asks. “Go find a random assassin and get them to talk?”

Admittedly, there was a teeny, tiny flaw in his plan.

What with someone sending assassins after him and all.

But!

Mara said she knew this particular assassin personally, and that she most likely wouldn’t kill Luke on sight. Didn’t like to get caught up in things involving the stupidest Jedi alive.

“She wasn’t a random assassin,” Luke says, frowning. “Mara knows her.”

The bounty hunter sighs. Again.

“That doesn’t make it better,” he says. And then – “Isn’t she still trying to kill you, too?”

Luke and Mara have a complicated relationship, alright? He thinks she’s great, she sometimes tries to kill him. 

It works for them.

“Uh-huh,” the bounty hunter says, like a man who doesn’t know why he bothers anymore. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that’s why your sister hired me.”

========

_Oh, no._

========

“ _Leia!_ ” Luke hisses, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one, especially a certain bounty hunter, is close enough to overhear them. “What did you do? _Why_ did you do?”

Even tiny and blue and see-through Leia oozes smug satisfaction.

Smiles at him and says, cryptically. “Two birds with one stone.” 

And then she cuts her end of the transmission, giving him a cheerful wave goodbye as she does.

========

Back to the assassins being sent to kill Luke thing.

“Are you really going to call it that?” the bounty hunter asks, voice heavy with disapproval. “It sounds a bit - “

Luke doesn’t get to hear what is sounds a bit like, because assassins.

“Oh, come on,” Luke mutters, throwing off his cloak so it won’t hinder his movements, thanking Ben in his head for that helpful tip, “we just did this!”

Because that stop to refuel after talking to Mara’s lovely assassin friend. 

The bounty hunter laughs, and a moment later pulls Luke out of the way of a vibroblade someone threw at him like an absolute animal.

“Less complaining, more staying alive,” the bounty hunter says, and then the shooting starts.

========

There was a...thing on a planet somewhere.

“Your stories are terrible,” the bounty hunter says, wincing as Luke cleans the gash on his arm, other injuries already seen to. 

Luke rolls his eyes, smooths his thumb over unmarked skin in apology. “ _You’re_ terrible,” he retorts, like the functional adult he’s supposed to be. “Also, hold still.”

The bounty hunter sighs, but does as he’s told. 

“Like I was saying,” Luke says, “there was a thing on a planet and I maybe deposed the local warlord there. Maybe.”

And it’s possible he may have made some enemies in the process. 

The bounty hunter holds his tongue until Luke’s finished talking, but Luke knows like he knows anything the man is laughing at him.

“Really.”

Luke is the one to sigh this time, carefully applying a bacta patch over the wound. “Terrible,” he says, fondness creeping in the way it’s wont to when dealing with this particular bounty hunter. “Absolutely terrible.”

========

“Oh, hey,” Luke says when they’re halfway to that planet where he deposed the local warlord – well, one of them – “I was wondering. Did you ever run into any bounties on me?”

It’s a long trip, and Luke’s bored.

The bounty hunter turns his head to look at Luke. Stares at him as though Luke’s said something so monumentally stupid he doesn’t have words anymore.

And then he turns the ship’s autopilot on and gets up. Gestures for Luke to follow him, which he does, and leads Luke down to the lower deck where the storage compartments are.

Luke gets another long look and this indecipherable sigh as the bounty hunter goes to a compartment and keys in a code to unlock it. When the panel slides up, he beckons Luke closer and points.

Luke looks inside.

“Wow,” he says. “That’s, huh.”

The compartment is large enough to store a camtono in. It’s also nearly full of bounty pucks.

“This is just one,” the bounty hunter says, and waves his hand at other storage compartments with locks on them like the one he showed Luke. 

“Huh,” Luke says again. And then, “Were you ever tempted to collect on any of them?”

The bounty hunter sighs. 

“All the time,” he answers as though Luke can’t hear the lie for what it is, the smile in his voice, and locks the storage compartment up again. “All the time.”

========

Luke honestly doesn’t know what he imagined would happen when they reach their destination.

Talking, probably. Finding a way to reach a peaceful solution. 

What he gets instead is a Mandalorian bounty hunter tackling him out of the way of a repeater blaster hidden behind a fake wall.

“Hello,” Luke says like an idiot, shiny helmet inches from his face. “Fancy meeting you here.”

The bounty hunter growls, something that Luke is definitely not going to think about, especially the way he felt it in his own chest, the way they’re positioned.

“Impossible,” the bounty hunter mutters, and pushes up to toss an explosive device towards the now destroyed hidden wall and repeater blaster still firing. “Absolutely impossible.”

Luke grins at him, at the way he moves to cover Luke from flying debris as the explosives detonate, so very, very careful to keep him as safe as he can.

“I’ve heard that before, yes,” he agrees, and laughs at the sigh it earns him.

========

There’s more, of course.

Mercenaries and local goons and thugs and a vibroblade that nicks Luke’s thigh.

The bounty hunter fares better, beskar notorious for being more durable than simple cloth, and eventually they reach the people behind the assassins after Luke and considerable inconveniences he’s experiences lately.

“I thought we really had something,” Luke says, because he did.

A poor farmer who’d risen to become something more, something his people needed in the face of a tyrant, a fascist, only to become what he’d hated most.

Or maybe it was always in him at his core, and having real power in his hands sent him on the wrong path, who can say.

“You’re a fool,” the man says, sneers. Dressed in finery while his people starve, a man who hasn’t learned the right lessons. “I knew we should have killed you then.”

They certainly would have done better, Luke has to admit. He was half dead at the time, but more importantly, he didn’t have a bounty hunter acting as a bodyguard.

“Yes,” Luke says, snap-hiss of his lightsaber igniting loud in the silence that fell after the would-be king’s words. “You should have.”

========

Luke sneaks away from the celebration that follows the deposing of a local warlord – two in a few short months on this planet that’s sure to be a record – and finds the bounty hunter outside.

 _Leaning_.

“You could have killed him,” the bounty hunter says, head tipped to the side. 

It’s not an accusation, or even really a question.

Luke shrugs, folds his hands in the sleeves of his cloak.

“I could have,” he says, and just saying so makes him feel...tired. He finds a smile, small and flickering. “The New Republic will want to have a word with him, though. All that Imperial equipment that showed up here.”

The repeater blaster for one, the armor and weapons his little army were using for another.

A planet somewhere that could make for a foothold for Imperial remnants, and anyway, Luke is but a simple Jedi. He couldn’t possibly fathom why something like this might be a concern to the New Republic.

The bounty hunter snorts.

“Menace,” he says, entirely fondly, and walks with Luke back to the ship.

========

“You should come back with me,” Luke says, punching in the coordinates for a little planet he knows. Safe place to leave an X-wing for a bit while he lets a bounty hunter act as his bodyguard because of all the assassins trying to kill him. “Grogu misses you.”

The bounty hunter – wait, no.

The assassins aren’t a concern anymore, which means the contract Leia had with him is complete, what with Luke being amazingly alive, so.

 _Din_ sighs. 

Turns his head to look at Luke.

“I was there two weeks ago,” he points out, amused. “And a week before that.”

All the way back to the first uncertain month after they met on the bridge of an Imperial light cruiser and Din had looked like Luke was taking his world away.

Which, no.

Luke’s certain the Mandalorian in blue armor with the glare he could feel through the helmet she wore would have loved to kill him then and there before he’d stolen Din away from whatever political games were being played.

But she hadn’t, and he did, and anyway.

“He still misses you,” Luke says, because it’s true.

Grogu is a joy, even at his most mischievous. But Grogu is also a child, for all that he’s older than either Luke or Din. One who has lived through more than anyone should ever have to, who loves this man in his shiny, shiny armor, who has given so much to keep him safe, happy.

Din hums, head tilting just so.

“He’s the only one, is he?”

And oh, oh, they’re doing this now, are they? So be it.

“Of course,” Luke says, and smiles, bright and sunny and an utter lie he knows Din sees through. “Were you expecting anything else?”

Because all the things that have happened since that day on an Imperial light cruiser, little adventures and other bits of excitement and close calls. That one time they were stuck on Hoth – why, Luke wants to know, why – and Din’s voice keeping Luke grounded as memories threatened to down him.

Other things, small moments.

And this, he supposes. 

A bounty hunter hired by Luke’s sister to act as his bodyguard, and something more besides because it’s Din, and he’s Luke, and somehow they fit together, jagged edges and all.

Din sighs – he really does do that a lot, Luke’s noticed – and looks forward.

“No,” he says, and it sounds a little like laughter in his voice. “Of course not.”

========

“So,” Leia says, tiny and blue and so very smug. “When should I expect the wedding announcement?”


End file.
